Monday, 28 November 2011

We are finally all moved in, still have boxes everywhere and are sleeping on a mattress on the floor (only Peter and I; the boys put their beds together already!)

There wasn't one single day that was designated as moving day. Peter just kept loading up the trailer and the cars every chance he got over the last few days and then enlisting the help of one or more of the boys to help him unload it all at the other end. It was my job to make sure there were enough things packed and ready to go to be able to fill the trailer and cars whenever he came back to the rental with enough energy to go again.

Thanks to the wonderful friends and family who helped us move all the little bits and especially to Clare and Debbie for unpacking the kitchen so I could find enough pots, pans and plates to cook dinner and keep the troops happy!

Friday, 25 November 2011

Even though we have the keys, we decided to do a few things to the house before moving in, like sealing all the concrete floors that aren't going to be tiled, put up curtain rods in every room, put up the sunblock curtains I bought on major sale about a year ago that have been sitting in a removalist box for ages, etc, etc, etc.

I was busily sealing the boys' bedroom floors (to keep the dust down) while Pete was busy putting up curtain rods. Off in my own little world, all of sudden I heard Pete yelling for me. Thinking he had hurt himself, I dropped the roller (into the tray of sealant splashing it everywhere, including all over myself!) and ran for the spare room, expecting blood or broken limbs, only to find him nowhere to be seen and a spray of water the size of Old Faithful spewing from the wall.

Seconds later the fountain of water stopped at which point I realised where Peter was .. out the front turning off the mains. (Thank goodness this house only has a 5 metre driveway and not a 35 metre one like the last house!) Pete came back inside and explained that he been happily drilling holes for the curtain rod brackets when all of a sudden, water just started gushing everywhere .. at full mains pressure! The little tiny 6.5mm wide hole pictured below let enough water into the room to soak the whole floor and the pressure was high enough that it hit the opposite wall 4 metres away.

The opposite wall contains the built-in robe with its lovely fibreboard sliding doors and brand new laminate shelving, all of which was thoroughly soaked. We grabbed a stack of old towels that were already at the house (must have known we'd need them!) and dried things up as best we could. Then we sat down and stressed out about how much it was going to cost to fix.

The remaining water after we mopped up

After whingeing for a while about "what a stupid place to put a water pipe" and "how are we going to fix it?", I thought it was worth a shot to call the builder and ask why there was a water pipe in the wall, right where a normal sane person would drill to install a curtain rod bracket. Surprise, surprise, the woman on the other end of the phone agreed it wasn't the brightest of things to have done and arranged for their plumber to contact us to get it fixed.

The plumber's first question when he phoned was "what have you done to my water pipe?" to which I responded "MY water pipe has a neat little hole in it because YOU put it in a very stupid place and now MY spare room has an indoor fountain that we don't want!" He arranged to come and fix it the next day with no mention of who was paying for it so we decided that we would just wait and see if we ended up with a bill in the mail. (Another example of the new mentality of refusing to get stressed over things we couldn't really control).

And, for those who just have to know these things, the curtain rod bracket still isn't in ...

Monday, 21 November 2011

The driveway is finally in after being put off twice due to possible rain (humph!) and I'm a bit disappointed in the overall level of finish. The downpipe grates have bits of concrete stuck to/in them and the fall isn't right.

Oh well, not everything can be perfect. At least the colour is close to what we agreed on!

I refuse to get stressed out over the little things because we finally have our keys!

Now we just have to seal all the floors that aren't going to be tiled, put 'make-do' floor coverings where there's supposed to be tiles, sort out some way of keeping the dog in the backyard, move everyhting, unpack everything and get ready for Christmas.

Thursday, 17 November 2011

I asked for the liquid limestone to be the same colour as the cream bricks.

This is what they gave me:

Now I know that in this photo, it doesn't look too bad but believe me, this is very orange in real life. When I spoke to the concreting guys, they assured me not to worry and that the 'pink' colour would fade as it dried.

I don't see pink .. I see orange and if it doesn't fade to a nice creamy colour, I will see dead concrete guys!

Monday, 14 November 2011

The robe doors are finally in which means the shower screens must be too but I can't get in to see them ... grrrr! The doors are a lot more yellow than I remember them being in the sample but maybe it's just because of the very white walls ... I hope!

Drew's room:

Brad's room:

And they have finally come and done a 'proper' site clean (after I specifically asked the site supervisor to arrange it .. apparently it had already been done and I'm just too fussy for my own good ... tell us something we don't know!) Yay, we have an undamaged footpath! Not long now!!